Founder and long-time director of the Opera Company of Boston and the first woman to conduct the Metropolitan Opera, Sarah Caldwell was one of America's best known and most adventurous conductors and opera directors. Her career spanned her wildly successful and innovative productions of classical operas such as Offenbach's Voyage to the Moon, Don Quixote, and Madama Butterfly to projects like "Making Music Together," which in 1988 brought together musicians and composers from the Soviet Union and the United States. Caldwell's work earned her many honorary degrees and she received the National Medal for the Arts from President Clinton in 1997. Challenges is based on a series of interviews Rebecca Matlock conducted over a period of three years before Caldwell's death in 2006. This intimate memoir gives us Caldwell's perceptions in her own unique, indomitable voice.
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"There are informative anecdotes about her early years with great singers (among them Renata Tebaldi, Joan Sutherland, Placido Domingo and Marilyn Horne) and her brilliant use of necessity as the mother of invention. Also intriguing was her search for original scores and editions before it became the fashion. As a pioneer with a vast frontier to conquer, she was a standout, and the book goes a long way toward showing us this."--Opera News (New York Metropolitan Opera's magazine)
Review
"A fascinating revelation of her life and endeavours by an incredible character, Sarah Caldwell." (Dame Joan Sutherland, OM, AC, DBE, author of A Prima Donna's Progress )
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Real Look at a Woman Conductor's Heart,
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This review is from: Challenges: A Memoir of My Life in Opera (Hardcover)
As a profesesional woman conductor one generation behind Sarah Caldwell, I enjoyed the book immensely. Through Caldwell's recollections it shows the conductor's view of a performing arts organization...its triumphs, its daily grind, its "challenges." Especially interesting is reading about Caldwell's intensive preparation work before the operas were produced. Also interesting is reading about promising young singers who are now household names in the opera world. A great read for anyone who likes to know what goes on behind the scenes, this one really shows the life of the artist at work and how she feels about it.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Opera is an art form cherished by many Americans, and Sarah Caldwell gives readers a look into the business,
By Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Challenges: A Memoir of My Life in Opera (Hardcover)
Opera is an art form cherished by many Americans, and Sarah Caldwell gives readers a look into the business with "Challenges: A Memoir of My Life in Opera". A conductor and founder of the long running Opera Company of Boston, and the first woman to conduct a Metropolitan Opera, she speaks as her times in the field, and earning many honors and awards along the way. "Challenges" is a must for any opera fan who wants to know more about how one of the most vital people in the orchestra lives her life.
2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Shallow ... very shallow,
By
This review is from: Challenges: A Memoir of My Life in Opera (Hardcover)
I found this book a thrown together collection of miscellaneous facts about Caldwell, without any but the most superficial insight into the woman, her approach to her work or the enormous impact of that work. She did lots of American premieres, she had troubles finding a home for her company or financing to sustain it, she worked with some of the great names in opera - OK, now tell me something I didn't know.
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Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs):
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opera group, opera department, orchestra parts Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New York, United States, Opera House, Making Music Together, Soviet Union, Komische Oper, Opera Company of Boston, East Berlin, Sarah Caldwell, Boris Goldovsky, State Department, World War, Metropolitan Opera, Beverly Sills, Boris Godunov, Boston University, Wolf Trap, Walter Felsenstein, White House, Donald Gramm, Rudolph Heinrich, Spaso House, Kansas City, Boston Symphony, Don Quichotte Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
opera group, opera department, orchestra parts Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New York, United States, Opera House, Making Music Together, Soviet Union, Komische Oper, Opera Company of Boston, East Berlin, Sarah Caldwell, Boris Goldovsky, State Department, World War, Metropolitan Opera, Beverly Sills, Boris Godunov, Boston University, Wolf Trap, Walter Felsenstein, White House, Donald Gramm, Rudolph Heinrich, Spaso House, Kansas City, Boston Symphony, Don Quichotte Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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